Green Energy turned out to be not so Green for this former Billionaire

Businessman T. Boone Pickens was dropped from the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans after losing much of his fortune in the wind farming industry. 

According to Forbes, Pickens’ fortune dropped below the $ 1 billion mark for the first time since 2005. His net worth once amounted to an estimated $2 billion, but now it sits at around $950 million. 

He told the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he had “lost [his] ass in the [wind] business.” He added, “the jobs are in oil and gas.”

In 2008, Pickens debuted his “Pickens Plan,” which aimed to increase the nation’s use of wind energy and decrease America’s dependence on OPEC oil. With the help of investors he spent 80 million dollars on TV ads to promote his plan and $2 billion on General Electric wind turbines. Pickens hoped that once the wind farm was constructed, it would be the largest in the world. 

The plan collapsed after natural gas prices fell and selling wind power was no longer economically feasible. He lost $150 million of his personal fortune on the failed wind plan.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here.
Please follow us on Twitter here.